Turn Your World Upside-Down. You’ll be Better for it (And You Can Show This to Your Grandma)

Here we go!! This is my article for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, which I have already taken the time to generously explain, so if you haven’t checked out my other posts, you’re lazy (Go ahead and check my last post, and then come back. Done? Great! Continue).

Check back for more articles, and if you’d like to contribute to next month’s Blog Carnival, leave me a comment on here or email me at sammiedsimile@gmail.com, and I will get you hooked up. You can thank me later. Enjoy our Carnival, and please, enjoy my Circus!

(Oh, and here’s the link for the Carnival. This will take you to the page where you can find everyone else’s posts. Enjoy! http://www.reachtoteachrecruiting.com/living-abroad-better-teachers)

 

Get it? …Yeah. This is going to get weird.

 

A few months back, I was sitting on the back of a motorcycle driven by a man I had met the night before, and I couldn’t tell you what his name was (let alone in English because he did not speak it), but I could tell you that he was a girl at taking shots of anything and that (hopefully) there was food in my immediate future.

Now, you might be thinking that this is a pretty terrible way to introduce my opinion on how traveling makes you a better person, but I promise I have a point. Anyway, at that moment a single thought popped into my rapidly-heading-towards-a-hangover brain, “Oh, no. My father would slaughter me.”

…And just as quickly as it hit me in the face, it was replaced. I snapped awake (in a sense) and realized that it simply didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what he would think of the things I was doing in Taiwan. Or in China. Or anywhere. The only thing that mattered, at that moment, was my age. I kept thinking over and over again that I was 24 years old. That’s it. 24. And I was fantastic at being 24 years old.

What did that mean? Well, I have lived in 3 countries in the last year alone, and I have traveled through even more than that. I have been learning how to let go and just do. Follow my gut and my heart and my instinct and go, go, go, go, see, see, see, see, do, do, do, do. It wasn’t really until that moment that I completely realized and accepted how insanely cool that was.

THIS acceptance. THIS kind of living. THIS is how you can use traveling to become a better person.

This is how you rock at being 24: Standing on Top of Taipei at sunrise.

Now, I’m not saying that you should drop all consideration of what anyone thinks of you. That is (obviously) not even a good way to live. If you’ve had access to the outside world in the last few weeks, then you have seen what happens when you throw it out the window (What’s up, Miley? Looking like a pretty big hot mess, girl. Try to tone that down). No. That’s not the point. The whole idea is to let go of any preconceived notions of what you HAVE to do or who you HAVE to be. You’re not a 16-year old child living in your parents’ house anymore—you’re on your own. Completely on your own. Mommy and Daddy aren’t even in the same hemisphere. No one can hold your hand. No one can make you comfortable. In fact, this is the perfect opportunity to chuck your comfort zone out of your life for a while. I’ve found I can continuously push my limits. I’ve learned how to let go, how to experience things I would never experience. I’ve learned how to be brave. Brave enough to go out, meet people who don’t even speak the same language as me, stay out drinking with them until 8 am and then hop on the back of this dude’s bike and let him take me around all day (even though he may have been serial killer. Or whatever. It didn’t matter).

This was a very real and very loud (in my mind) epiphany, and I literally spread my hands and yelled in joy at the sky. I’m pretty positive I ruined this poor, weird Taiwanese guy, but it was worth it. I was the best version of a 24-year old, world-traveling Samantha that I could possibly be, and it didn’t matter that my father wouldn’t have exactly (at all) approved of my antics. Sorry, Dad.

THIS is a wave that I am going to ride out as long as I can get away with it. But allow me to explain myself a bit more before you go on assuming that this post is about being a drunken idiot and somehow that makes you not just another Miley Cyrus trying to prove yourself an adult. Up to this point, I’ve been giving you nothing but introduction. I’ve already promised that there is a real point to this, and I will actually tell you how I think you can make yourself better.

First, you have to know though, it takes a lot of ballsy thoughtlessness, an open mind, and a grasp of who you are to pull this off—it’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind you’re about to create and lose yourself. Don’t let that happen. This kind of thinking requires you to be ridiculous, and that means whatever you want it to mean. Think of it this way, you’re already brave enough to get out of your home country, and hopefully you’re not treating your traveling like a summer camp (where are the counselors? At camp. Exactly where you aren’t). No one should be telling you what to do or where to go or whom you should be hanging out with. If you begin a night out with a group of friends and you meet someone who you want to leave with—you do it: like a boss. Arrange things with the people you came with (don’t be a shady idiot. That’s pretty much the opposite of being a better person), and then go do something wild.

Do you want to go to Hong Kong just to have dinner? Do you want to backpack through Brazil with a strange man who only speaks Portuguese? Do you want to challenge a Taiwanese man to a battle of whiskey shots? Yeah, you should go ahead and do those things.

Want to dress in costumes and light someone’s yard on fire? ….

There is no real need to plan out your life or your actions while you’re here (or there. Wherever you are). I have met people who won’t go out and explore or push themselves outside of their comfort zones because they are too concerned about what they’re going to do in the future. “What job will I have? Where will I live? What should I be doing now to put myself in a position to be super successful when I’m 40?”

….Whaaaat? Who cares? When I was a child, I didn’t worry about what was going to happen when I was 24, and it happened anyway. Life has a funny way of working out like that, so why not go ahead and be crazy while you have the time to do so?

“But wait! Sam, is this a very safe way of thinking? Aren’t I going to get in trouble at some point!? Won’t at least one of these rash decisions turn out to be a really bad choice?”

Yup. Without a doubt, one of them will. Maybe more than one. Hopefully more than one. You’ll learn. And that’s the point, right? These are experiences in YOUR life—not anyone else’s—and they are going to teach you. You cannot learn from yourself without knowing and understanding both good and bad—euphoric and utterly humiliating emotional experiences.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to wake up in a dark room that isn’t your own after a night of partying with one (or two, or three) people who can’t speak English? Well, there’s only one way to find out. And who knows? You might be into that kind of thing. I won’t judge you. You could also wake up from that and be mortified, scared, confused and angry. Well, now you know: Don’t do that again.

…And then your brain explodes, but the mess isn’t that bad to clean up.

After a while, you’ll realize that everything you’ve done in the past has made you into who you are today, and that includes every bad decision you’ve ever made. I firmly believe that the best way in moving forward is screwing up… a lot. And one of the best things about screwing up in a foreign country is that no one else really knows or cares about it, and those mistakes don’t quite follow you back to you home when or should you choose to leave.

But being abroad and having this mindset doesn’t strictly limit you to making slutty choices in bars with a bunch of non-English speakers. This idea of following your desires can be as simple as trying some new, weird type of food that you’d never have the opportunity to truly taste back home. Seriously, when was the last time you had chicken feet and red bean ice cream for dinner? (Actually, it was sometime around March, I think).

Mostly just weird.

You’ll become more and more brave the longer you allow yourself to be. You’ll stop asking for advice from your friends and family back home, because you’ll learn that it doesn’t really apply to you anymore. You’ll be glad that you know how to go out and find your own answers (and see some weird shit along the way). What the Hell does your Mom know about that Thai tattoo artist? She’s been stuck in Cleveland for the last 35 years, but you sure know that you’re willing to let him tattoo you right now. So let him.

You’re going to use all of this experience throughout your life, and you now have SO MUCH because you were willing to blindly go after what you wanted. You’ll learn how to make friends all over the world, because you’re about to equalize yourself with everyone. You’ll have been up and down. You’ll know that you could do more than you ever thought possible, and at the same time you’ll learn that you’re no better than anyone else in the world (I mean, look at all of the times you screwed up. Be humble).

You’re going to learn about the things you enjoy, and you’ll figure out all the things you loathe. You’ll learn how to love and how to hate. You’ll learn how to be angry and sympathetic. You’ll see the difference between being alone and being lonely. You’re going to understand what it means to be scared, confused, ecstatic and excited. You will learn how to screw up completely on your own. No one will have to hold your hand through your screw-ups. No one will have to tell you that afterwards, it will all be ok. You’ll already know that it will be. You’ll begin to see the world differently, and you’re going to love it. You’re going to learn to be patient with people, because you’ve done enough to cause more than your share of people to be patient with you. You’ll learn how to develop emotional ties to communities, cities, and countries because of the impact of your own choices on your own life while you were there.

You’re going to find out how to just completely suck. You’ll figure out when you’re at your worst. Because that, my friends, is how you become better.

 

Turn Your World Upside-Down. You’ll be Better for it.

Get it? …Yeah. This is going to get weird.

A few months back, I was sitting on the back of a motorcycle driven by a man I had met the night before, and I couldn’t tell you what his name was (let alone in English because he did not speak it), but I could tell you that he was a bitch at taking shots of anything and that (hopefully) there was food in my immediate future.

Now, you might be thinking that this is a pretty shit way to introduce my opinion on how traveling makes you a better person, but I promise I have a point. Anyway, at that moment a single thought popped into my rapidly-heading-towards-a-hangover brain, “Oh, fuck. My father would slaughter me.”

…And just as quickly as it hit me in the face, it was replaced. I snapped awake (in a sense) and realized that it simply didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what he would think of the things I was doing in Taiwan. Or in China. Or anywhere. The only thing that mattered, at that moment, was my age. I kept thinking over and over again that I was 24 years old. That’s it. 24. And holyshit, I was goddamned good at being 24 years old.

This is how you rock at being 24: Standing on Top of Taipei at sunrise.

What did that mean? Well, I have lived in 3 countries in the last year alone, and I have traveled through even more than that. I have been learning how to let go and just do. Follow my gut and my heart and my instinct and go, go, go, go, see, see, see, see, do, do, do, do. It wasn’t really until that moment that I completely realized and accepted how fucking fantastic that was.

THIS acceptance. THIS kind of living. THIS is how you can use traveling to become a better person.

Now, I’m not saying that you should drop all consideration of what anyone thinks of you. That is (obviously) not even a good way to live. If you’ve had access to the outside world in the last few weeks, then you have seen what happens when you throw it out the window (What’s up, Miley? Looking like a pretty fucking big hot mess, girl. Try to tone that shit down). No. That’s not the point. The whole idea is to let go of any preconceived notions of what you HAVE to do or who you HAVE to be. You’re not a 16-year old child living in your parents’ house anymore—you’re on your own. Completely on your own. Mommy and Daddy aren’t even in the same hemisphere. No one can hold your hand. No one can make you comfortable. In fact, this is the perfect opportunity to chuck your comfort zone out of your life for a while. I’ve found I can continuously push my limits. I’ve learned how to let go, how to experience things I would never experience. I’ve learned how to be brave. Brave enough to go out, meet people who don’t even speak the same language as me, stay out drinking with them until 8 am and then hop on the back of this dude’s bike and let him take me around all day (even though he was weird as fuck).

This was a very real and very loud (in my mind) epiphany, and I literally spread my hands and yelled in joy at the sky. I’m pretty positive I scared the shit out of this poor, weird Taiwanese guy, but it was worth it. I was the best version of a 24-year old, world-traveling Samantha that I could possibly be, and it didn’t matter that my father wouldn’t have exactly (at all) approved of my antics. Sorry, Dad.

THIS is a wave that I am going to ride out as long as I can get away with it. But allow me to explain myself a bit more before you go on assuming that this post is about being a drunken idiot and somehow that makes you not an asshole. Up to this point, I’ve been giving you nothing but introduction. I’ve already promised that there is a real point to this, and I will actually tell you how I think you can make yourself better.

First, you have to know though, it takes a lot of ballsy thoughtlessness, an open mind, and a grasp of who you are to pull this off—it’s easy to get caught up in shit and lose yourself. Don’t let that happen. This kind of thinking requires you to be ridiculous, and that means whatever you want it to mean. Think of it this way, you’re already brave enough to get out of your home country, and hopefully you’re not treating your traveling like a summer camp (where are the counselors? Fucking nowhere, that’s where). No one should be telling you what to do or where to go or whom you should be hanging out with. If you begin a night out with a group of friends and you meet someone who you want to leave with—you do it: like a badass. Arrange shit with the people you came with (don’t be an asshole. That’s pretty much the opposite of being a better person), and then go do something wild.

Do you want to go to Hong Kong just to have dinner? Do you want to backpack through Brazil with a strange man who only speaks Portuguese? Do you want to challenge a Taiwanese man to a battle of whiskey shots? Yeah, you should go ahead and do those things.

Want to dress in costumes and light someone’s yard on fire? ….

There is no real need to plan out your life or your actions while you’re here (or there. Wherever you are). I have met people who won’t go out and explore or push themselves outside of their comfort zones because they are too concerned about what they’re going to do in the future. “What job will I have? Where will I live? What should I be doing now to put myself in a position to be super successful when I’m 40?”

….The fuck? Who cares? When I was a child, I didn’t worry about what was going to happen when I was 24, and it happened anyway. Life has a funny way of working out like that, so why not go ahead and be crazy while you have the time to do so?

“But wait! Sam, is this a very safe way of thinking? Aren’t I going to get in trouble at some point!? Won’t at least one of these rash decisions turn out to be a really bad choice?”

Yup. Without a doubt, one of them will. Maybe more than one. Hopefully more than one. You’ll learn. And that’s the point, right? These are experiences in YOUR life—not anyone else’s—and they are going to teach you. You cannot learn from yourself without knowing and understanding both good and bad—euphoric and utterly humiliating emotional experiences.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to wake up in a dark room that isn’t your own after a night of partying with one (or two, or three) people who can’t speak English? Well, there’s only one way to find out. And who knows? You might be into that kind of thing. I won’t judge you. You could also wake up from that and be mortified, scared, confused and angry. Well, now you know: Don’t fucking do that again.

…And then your brain explodes, but the mess isn’t that bad to clean up.

After a while, you’ll realize that everything you’ve done in the past has made you into who you are today, and that includes every bad decision you’ve ever made. I firmly believe that the best way in moving forward is fucking up… a lot. And one of the best things about fucking up in a foreign country is that no one else really knows or cares about it, and those mistakes don’t quite follow you back to you home when or should you choose to leave.

But being abroad and having this mindset doesn’t strictly limit you to making slutty choices in bars with a bunch of non-English speakers. This idea of following your desires can be as simple as trying some new, weird type of food that you’d never have the opportunity to truly taste back home. Seriously, when was the last time you had chicken feet and red bean ice cream for dinner? (Actually, it was sometime around March, I think).

Mostly just weird.

You’ll become more and more brave the longer you allow yourself to be. You’ll stop asking for advice from your friends and family back home, because you’ll learn that it doesn’t really apply to you anymore. You’ll be glad that you know how to go out and find your own answers (and see some weird shit along the way). What the Hell does your Mom know about that Thai tattoo artist? She’s been stuck in Cleveland for the last 35 years, but you sure as shit know that you’re willing to let him tattoo you right now. So let him.

You’re going to use all of this experience throughout your life, and, holyshit, you now have SO MUCH because you were willing to blindly go after what you wanted. You’ll learn how to make friends all over the world, because you’re about to equalize yourself with everyone. You’ll have been up and down. You’ll know that you could do more than you ever thought possible, and at the same time you’ll learn that you’re no better than anyone else in the world (I mean, look at all of the times you fucked up. Be humble).

You’re going to learn about the things you enjoy, and you’ll figure out all the things you loathe. You’ll learn how to love and how to hate. You’ll learn how to be angry and sympathetic. You’ll see the difference between being alone and being lonely. You’re going to understand what it means to be scared, confused, ecstatic and excited. You will learn how to fuck up completely on your own. No one will have to hold your hand through your fuck ups. No one will have to tell you that afterwards, it will all be ok. You’ll already know that it will be. You’ll begin to see the world differently, and you’re going to love it. You’re going to learn to be patient with people, because you’ve done enough shit to cause more than your share of people to be patient with you. You’ll learn how to develop emotional ties to communities, cities and countries because of the impact of your own choices on your own life while you were there.

You’re going to find out how to just fucking suck. You’ll figure out when you’re at your worst. Because that, my friends, is how you become better.

 

 

PREACH.

Welcome to the Carnival

There are about to be some fucking changes up in here.

Actually, there really are! While this blog will continue to be the home for me to unload the sack of bananas that is my mind, it will also (occasionally) operate with a bit more direction.

I have had requests thanks to Facebook and Twitter to write more about my adventures abroad. Well, fuck you… Ok. Sorry. You’re right, though. Here’s why this has taken so long: I have been avoiding making the Metaphorical Big Top a travel blog, because, as I’ve said before, I haven’t been particularly interested in creating another place for me to tell you about the shit I do on a daily basis. This isn’t my journal. This is about writing. And kind of about living like a crazy person. The latter, though, is a good enough reason to start taking these suggestions. If there is something I do well, it is living like a lunatic abroad (welcome to my circus).

This may not look very lunatic-y to you, but I’m sure it was. It’s in Taiwan at least, so it works.

On top of simply adding more travel-y posts, my Big Top is going to be a part of a blog carnival.

What the fuck is a blog carnival (other than the sideshow where I clearly belong)? Great question. Basically, a group of travelers and bloggers were brought together by a superpower unknown and thrown together to create a show like none have ever seen while robbing banks and proving that magic exists… (just kidding. That’s the plot to a movie I just watched that taught me that James Franco has a hot brother).

In all seriousness, there IS a group of travelers and bloggers who have agreed to write on a specific topic once a month. We will throw a bunch of ideas together and agree on something that relates to traveling in some way. Each of us comes up with our own article on this topic, and then we post it on our own blogs. Now, it becomes a carnival when we all jump on the popularity of each other. One of us will host, link to every other blog involved in this carnival, and BAM! Like that, you’ve suddenly got a shit ton of different view points on the same topic, and I suddenly have a bazillion new people to check out my upside-down ideas (you suckers).

This is actually a pretty cool thing. One of the best things about writing is the voice it gives you–your style, your ideas, the way you attract your readers, the way you tell a story–that is what makes your writing so different from anyone else’s. With this carnival, we have the opportunity to show off a fucktillion different styles and ideas, so if you’re not a big fan of my use of the word “fucktillion” (it’s a real number. Fuck you), then you’re bound to find someone through this carnival who is a bit more your speed. Perhaps many more. Who knows. I’ve never been involved with one of these before.

Here’s a bit more information on the carnival:

This month will be hosted by the not-so-unknown superpower that has put this thing together: Reach to Teach. This is a company based out of Taipei, Taiwan that helps place English teachers in different countries. If you’ve never heard of them, then you’re a serious step behind in getting your foot out of your goddamned front door and into another country. Trust me. I cannot speak highly enough of this. (For more information on Reach to Teach, check out their website here: http://www.reachtoteachrecruiting.com). I will link my first post to their blog, and from there, you will be able to hit the rest of the blogs involved in the carnival.

How much of this shit have you even bothered to see? What a waste…

Next month, someone else will host. Eventually, I will host. It will continue to rotate, and we will all be world famous. Probably.

The carnival goes live September 5th, so I will be posting my first travel article on THIS page on the 4th. You can read mine whenever, and then link yourself to the host and check out the rest of the blogs. You’re going to learn a lot of shit, and it may be enough to get your ass out there in the world (we can only hope).

Let’s all hope we do our jobs well enough to have this carnival be a success, and that you lovely readers get some awesome information/stories/nonsense out of it as well. I’m doing this for you. And also for me. Give me more readers! I’ll steal your souls!

…..

Things in Taiwan that Suck

I owe you all an apology. I am sorry. I have been living in Taiwan for a while now, and I have completely missed any opportunity to let you know about the things in Taiwan that suck. Well, without further ado, allow me to indulge you all in the glorious information that is: THINGS IN TAIWAN THAT SUCK.

…Nothing.

Wait. What?

Seriously. THIS is why I am struggling to write. While I was in China, I could write up a quick blog about how much it sucks to be at a coffee shop or how weird my apartment was, but here, seriously, nothing sucks. Nothing makes me want to sit down and pour any part of my heart out to compensate for any kind of unhappiness or anything-less-than-positive emotion.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Not everything is dipped in chocolate. Sometimes I have to go to work. And do things! And be on time! Just look at these faces I have to see every day! It’s like torture (cue the whiny violin).

Can’t you just feel my never-ending pain and agony?

And there are a lot of girls here who are prettier than me (Who am I kidding? Literally every Taiwanese girl on the face of the planet is prettier than every white girl simply because she is Taiwanese and, by default, genetically fucking gorgeous. Just… fuck your genes). Case in point:

Also, they’re not fucking embarrassingly stupid #NoFilter! (…)

Also, I can’t seem to shake this kid at the track who just doesn’t understand proper work out etiquette (C’mon, kid. If someone is running, you simply do not strike up conversation about your religion, school, interests or anything. Ever. Especially not day after day after day when that person tries to come at different times to avoid these awkward conversations and ultimately turns completely around and runs the wrong way around the track. TAKE A HINT…).

But can you even see the MONDO!? I can’t stay away from that Track. Good work, Taipei Arena.

But let’s be honest. These are mild inconveniences. I can’t even say that they suck because my attitude here is so much better than it was while I was living in China. My boss is not the succubus of fun and happiness. My friends aren’t boring. My city isn’t dirty or cold. My Internet doesn’t blow. My apartment isn’t a frigid nightmare without power, heat or neighbors who throw shit at each other (that was fun).

My point is: this place is cool. My other point is: I am going to keep writing things—whether they are awesome or not. Maybe something tragic will happen, or something will suck, and then my blog will become just full of emotion and direction, and then everyone on the planet will just obsess over how much of an amazingly, tragically tortured writer I am. But until that point, please enjoy my nonsense. I’ll continue to be happy and make up things to write about.

(If you think this post is stupid, you can blame my Writing Elf. If you’re unsure what that is, please educate yourself by checking out the blog of an amazingly talented writer and friend here: http://appetiteodysseys.blogspot.tw/ . She will teach you all about it, and then you’ll have someone to blame for your stupid writing as well. And seriously, subscribe to her blog).

My writing elf is probably drunk.

I Have No Words…

Sometimes writing is just fucking hard. It is hard to be creative or inspired or to just calm your mind down enough that you can get your shit together in a form that makes any goddamn sense.

I am struggling with this.

This is where I have been. I don’t know what I want or what I have to say or how to say it or how to turn my brain down or say what I’m thinking, and I’m not sure if I’m being creative or how to get inspired, and with all of that (see how that was fucking nonsense?), I can’t decide what to write. I start to write something, and then I go back and read it, but I don’t want to read it. And if I don’t want to read it, why would anyone else want to read it? I can’t even entertain myself. Who am I!?

I can’t figure out what kind of mood I am in. I can’t tell if I’m in a sharing mood or an irritated-advice-giving mood or a storytelling mood. Do I want something? Am I distracted? It’s like when you can’t decide what music you want to listen to…”Do I want to listen to Leonard Cohen or Public Enemy?”… and then you’re just confusing yourself. My mind and my attention and my emotions are just all over the board. I’m exploding in about 300 different directions at once, and I can’t reel anything in enough to get completely motherfucking committed.

But this is a crock of shit. And instead of wasting my time by not writing, I have decided to write about my inability to write. Does that make any sense?

This isn’t me giving advice on how to snap out of writers’ block or how to buck the fuck down and just do something. This also isn’t me explaining that now I am going to turn it all around and start writing awesome articles or stories or whatever that make perfect fucking sense–completely making up for my last 5(ish) months of not even posting a single paragraph on my blog (Because I can’t promise that).

I actually have no idea what this is, but it feels right, so I will continue it.

I have always believed that if I have nothing to say, then I shouldn’t say anything. It is better to produce nothing than to produce bullshit writing (I mean, seriously, wouldn’t you rather clean up nothing than clean up shit?). So, that has been where I have been: running around Taipei with nothing really to say. And I’m not implying that my life is at a standstill or that I’ve had nothing to do–I have been everywhere and done everything (figuratively) in the last few months. And I’ve been super fucking stoked about it. I just haven’t been inspired to write about it. I know that I don’t really care to read anyone’s journal, nor do I care to keep one… “Blah, blah, blah today I went into downtown and saw an orange cat sitting on a car, and then I decided to have lunch…” Fucking. No.

But maybe that’s the problem. There’s been too much doing or thinking or whatever, that I can’t condense it to anything entertaining. And if you’re not being entertaining, well then what’s the goddamn point?

I want to get my shit together and write. I really, really do. I want to write every single day, and I want to write something worth being read. But I will not and cannot waste your time by producing another fucking blog about shit I did that you didn’t do.

Maybe I need to do something a bit more embarrassing? Or maybe I need to be given a prompt to kick my ass into gear? Or maybe I need to get in some kind of emotionally compromising situation to stimulate my creativity? Or… I’m all out of ideas. But I’m sorry. I can’t even finish this well.

Fuck me.

Here. Here’s a picture of a chicken wearing pants. It’s the best I can do.

Happy February! Women are Insane.

I want to start this story off with a warning to anyone who is interested in perusing a romantic relationship with a female: This girl is going to tell you that she is better than normal. She isn’t like other girls. She doesn’t have any moments of crazy. She is never going to get mad at you. She handles her emotional issues like guys do. She is levelheaded. She will never do anything to make you question her sanity. She will never judge you for doing anything or thinking like a man. She is going to understand all of your choices and she will never get mad at you over anything stupid. She is going to say all of these things, and you are going to believe her. It is important to know that no matter what image of herself she projects to you, she is a woman, and she is a liar.

That being said, I’m going to display my moments of embarrassing insanity for you.

I haven’t always been against relationships and love and all of that icky gross stuff. In fact, I did not go without a boyfriend from the time I was 13 until I was 21. I am also aware that having a boyfriend at 13 doesn’t really count, but in my mind at that time it definitely did. I was pretty sure that we were going to be married. And have millions of dollars. And never fight (which didn’t make much sense, because we fought all the time). And travel the world. And be infinitely happy—even though I was 13, and he was going to drop out of high school. But I digress. The point of this story is not to talk about the relationship I had at 13. Or even at 18. Or even at 21. The point is to talk about my rapidly deteriorating ability to comprehend romantic, human emotion.

This downward spiral began somewhere between the “things are going wrong,” and the “don’t ever fucking speak to me again,” stages in my final relationship. In order to not be an asshole, I won’t give away his name; so let’s just call him Frankenstein’s Monster. Well something happened and Frankenstein’s Monster and I called our relationship off. And by that I mean he dumped me (it was more complicated than that, but that’s the simplest way I can put it). I’m not going to go into detail, but I will say that this breakup was not a very pretty one. Things did not end well. You know how sometimes when a couple breaks things off and go their separate ways, even though they’re mad and hate each other, they still have some positive thoughts somewhere? She will eventually begin to think, “Well, we aren’t together anymore, but I still want nothing but the best for him,” and he will start to think, “Look at that girl over there. She kind of looks like my ex: who gave fantastic blowjobs. She should get a trophy,” (See? Positivity).

Always listen to your Grandma.

Well this is nothing like that. If I were to say I want the best for F.M., it could easily be interpreted as, “I hope he catches fire at some point in his life, and I hope he forgets to stop, drop and/or roll.” Likewise, I would imagine if he were to say, “I hope she’s happy,” means something more along the lines of, “I hope her plane to China or wherever she travels from now on goes down into an active volcano.” So without giving away any juicy specifics, we can safely say that this was one of the most emotionally crippling breakups to ever happen. Ever. In history. To anyone (Probably not, but it was rough).

Unfortunately for me, this created a chain of events that lead to an eventual emotional and mental breakdown. Though, I’m pretty sure he went through some kind of emotional trauma as well. It probably went something like this:

1. Do all of the things that led to eventual break up.
2. Ponder how other people may be affected by my actions.
3. Continue on with life.

Don’t get me wrong. F.M. still hates me. Those steps may seem simple and fleeting, but, I assure you, I made sure they were not.

On the other hand, this is not how I handled the situation. I went through quite a few more steps. My trauma played out something like this:

1. Figure out all of the things that led to eventual break up.
2. Pretend they didn’t exist.
3. Become forcibly confronted with reality.
4. Refuse to function rationally.
5. Question the point of my own existence.
6. Spiral down into a weird depression full of denial.
7. Continue to put myself into painful and uncomfortable situations.
8. Try to overcome any emotional pain with not-so-innocent ideas/actions.
9. Set everyone on fire. *
10. Fail at overcoming emotional pain.
11. Retreat from most human contact/social encounters.
12. Scratch that idea and drink a lot. With everyone.
13. Scratch that idea and retreat again.
14. Repeat steps 12 and 13 a few more times.
15. Forget all “ex-boyfriend etiquette” and encourage unnecessary contact.
16. Repeat steps 10-14 again.
17. Realize the rapid deterioration of emotional and mental state.
18. Become comfortable with that emotional and mental state.
19. Avoid any kind of emotional or romantic connection.
20. Continue on with life.

So, apparently I can’t handle any negative situation well.

I think it is important to mention that somewhere around step 6 I realized that even if he came crawling back on hands and knees begging me to take him back, I would have thrown lava on him. Actual lava. And after that time, I never wanted to try and win him back. I just became full of negativity towards him and psychotic emotional behavior towards everyone else who believed a connection with the opposite sex was important.

This breakup happened in 2009. It is now 2013. I have been hearing the same thing now for a solid three years, “Oh you’re single? You must have really been hurt badly…”

Allow me to clear the air. It isn’t so much that I was hurt badly (I mean, I was. But who hasn’t been?). It is more that my ability to handle emotional discomfort or pain is probably on par with my ability to fly. Instead of being a mature adult and simply accept that it was time for us to go our separate ways, I chose to short circuit. I probably should have been emotionally healed by now, but I chose instead to keep on this track and say, “Fuck you,” to every potential happy and romantic thought that has ever entered my mind. I never really flipped the switch back to normal, and because of that I rate being in a relationship right around slicing my wrists and jumping into a shark tank. And it has brought me to make some pretty awesomely bad decisions.

Even though I am going to stay away from any and all specifics, I would like to point out how brilliant an emotionally confused mind can be. My actions could probably be categorized as: wildly inappropriate, mildly upsetting and amusing in retrospect.

Since this break up happened, I have been completely unable to comprehend how the paradigm of normal relationships should actually work. I have had no idea how to express any interest in another individual, and I have been completely misinformed on how to communicate with F.M. (Now, this is an good place to interject a lesson I have learned though a whole bunch of unfortunate mistakes: There is only one way to communicate with an ex: DON’T FUCKING DO IT).  I have had a few encounters with guys that turned out mostly to be pretty bad choices at the time, but otherwise pretty unimportant (sorry).

Unfortunately, the encounters I had with F.M. have been less unimportant. I went through phases where I hated him and never wanted to speak to him again, and then I would have a moment of mental retardation and decide that we should be friends, and I would act on this. It never seemed to go well. We would begin speaking like normal people, and then something would happen (usually on my end) that would cause a poisonous reaction and would once again kill our relationship. It was usually that I would be happy with our friendship, and then the pain of the breakup would sneak up into my mind, and I would freak out about something he did in the past. Apparently, people don’t appreciate constant reminders of their douchebaggery, and he would flip out, tell me to leave him alone, and I would fall back into the steps of my mental breakdown.

I had two pretty awesome encounters with him. The first one happened the summer of 2010, when two of his good friends were in the area I lived in. One had come specifically to visit me, and the other had come on vacation and we had made plans to see each other while he was in town. So I was out drinking with my ex’s two friends and the girlfriend of one of them. We were having a really good time—these were people who I’d kept in contact with but hadn’t gotten to see for over a year, and it was nice to catch up with a night out.

Now, it is important to note that I have a bit of a control problem. As in, I have no control over myself in most situations. When I was in college I was a track athlete, so I didn’t drink very often during the school year. I would maybe have one or two drunken nights during the first semester, and that would be it for an entire year. My entire college drinking life was condensed to the three months we had off in the summer. I took full advantage of it.

The last thing I remember this night was taking a Three Wiseman shot at a sushi bar. This was after an Everclear-filled daiquiri and a few other cocktails. Now, if you are unaware, a Three Wiseman is a triple shot of full of mistakes. It is a full count of each Jim Beam, Jack Daniels and Jose Cuervo, and it is not meant to make you wise. This shot was given to me because my 21^st birthday was that February—in the middle of a track season when I was not drinking, and so that night seemed an appropriate substitute night to celebrate. Throwing back that shot is the last lucid memory I have of that night.

The next thing I remember is waking up naked in my own bed covered in cuts, bruises and for some reason what seemed like half of the forest. I am not kidding that I was lying in a bed of pine needles and branches. This is impressive considering I lived at the beach. It was not uncommon for me to wake up in a bed full of sand, but a bed full of things you’d find in the woods is usually reserved for people who live in the woods. I was sick and miserable. I had no idea what was going on. Fortunately for me, my friends were also in my house, and were prepared to enlighten me about the confusing situation I had awoken to (Note: this story may have some embellishment–as all good stories do. No one was anywhere near sober, so who knows).

Apparently, after my sobriety completely checked out for the night, I decided we should continue drinking. We went from one bar to the next, and did not take any time off from consuming as much alcohol as possible. I guess I was so trashed at one point that I tried to tip the bartender something like $200. Lucky for me, he was a friend and didn’t take my money. So this extreme drunkenness coupled with the presence of my ex’s friends brought about an idea that I was unable to shake: Get in contact with Frankenstein’s Monster.

I made this idea abundantly clear to the group. I also made it clear that I had changed my phone number so he wouldn’t have it, and I didn’t necessarily want to call him from my phone. The only option I had was to steal someone else’s cell phone and use it to call F.M. The problem is that I remember everything. To this day, I could dial his number in my sleep. It didn’t matter that I was piss drunk or that my friends knew what I was trying to do. If I could’ve gotten my hands on any other cell phone on the planet, I could have made the call. Guess what? I did.

I didn’t even have to steal from a random bar patron. I was somehow able to get one of my friend’s phones. And I wasted no time in making a phone call at three in the morning to someone who I should have never been talking to in the first place. Now, I don’t remember this call. I don’t remember the details of this call. It could have lasted 20 minutes or 20 seconds. I know that my friend managed to get the phone away from me mid-conversation, and he had to apologize to F.M. on both his behalf and mine (I only know this because I was told). Apparently he had to explain not only that he was spending time with me, but that he was drinking with me and gave me the means to drunk-dial my ex. I don’t think the conversation went well.

Now, like most people, when I am drunk my emotions tend to get a little bit out of control. Anything involving F.M. even to this day would send me into an emotional hurricane, and this night was no different. I was so drunk and distraught that I (obviously) couldn’t drive us home, but one of the guys was capable. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember where I lived, and I ended up directing us on a long and pointless trip to nowhere. And I decided that halfway through the trip was a good time to run away.

I told the driver that I had to pee, and unless he pulled over and let me out I was going to pee in the car. I’m going to be honest; I’m pretty impressed with my thought processes at this point. I think it’s a miracle I was even able to put a sentence together, let alone hatch such a masterful running-away scheme. So my friend pulled the car over, and I leaped out and took off towards the woods on the side of the highway. I lost my shoes and just kept running as far as I could. These woods were not the kind of woods you would go hiking in. They were the kind that was a mess of trees closely grown together on the side of the road, full of thorns and branches and danger, and I sprinted through them like it was a field of flowers. My friends had no option but to turn the car off and follow me. I was found, dragged back to the car (probably crying), and forced to get in the backseat and keep my thoughts to myself. Someone had the sense to put my address into the GPS and get us back to my house.

When I got home my brain turned back into normal drunk girl mode, which basically just thinks, “get naked and try not to throw up.” Which I successfully did. Though, I wasn’t able to take the forest off with my clothes.

I spent the next day wishing for death. I didn’t apologize to F.M. for waking him up with my bullshit either. I don’t feel bad about that at all. I do feel bad about being a horrible hot mess whom my friends had to babysit for a night. Sorry, guys.

So yeah. Happy almost Valentine’s Day! We’re all bat-shit crazy, and don’t let anyone else tell you anything different.

Ka. Boom.

* I’ve never actually set anyone on fire.

Things in China That Suck: Round 2

Electricity and gas payments are not handled the same way in Chinese apartment complexes as they are in American apartment complexes (I can’t speak for Chinese houses, because I don’t live in one, know of anyone who lives in one or have actually ever even seen one—I’ve also never seen a natural tree or patch of grass in Xi’an, but that’s another story). Here, you pay your bills in advance, and your power lasts as long as your money does. There are tickers outside of your flat that count down how much power you have left before you have to pay more money. You also don’t pay a company; you pay your complex at the main office.

Now this all sounds fairly simple, but when you live in a city where no one speaks English and the tickers don’t just show one number but are constantly switching between your money and some other numbers that look like this: 31009.8765 (What the fuck does that mean?) things can get really confusing. On top of that—my apartment is…broken. The tickers have a red light that blinks when your power is about to run out, but because my apartment is the retarded kid of the building, my red light NEVER turns off. There is something wrong with the electricity or the ticker box itself, and it DRAINS my power. It costs the other teachers around 30 RMB a month for their power when mine costs over 100. Now this is still only about $10 USD, so I don’t really complain, but it has me in a constant state of panic.

I also don’t complain because I already tried that. I asked someone Chinese to help explain that my power was fucking broken, and could someone please, for fuck’s sake, come find and fix the problem. The response of the electrician who works right here in the fucking apartment complex for this very reason was for me to, “take the box to the company and have them fix it.”

…. How do I even get it out of the wall?

So naturally, I didn’t do that shit. Now I just deal with it.

The best is when I go to pay. The people in the office look at me like I’m the Loch Ness Monster trying to read a book. I stupidly hand them my power card with a couple of 100 RMB bills and hope for the best. I always smile and try to be nice, but the woman who sits at the computer looks at me like I’m a dirty insect she’d like to kill. The whole time she uses this outdated system to put money on my power card, and I just stand there–this idiot who looks super uncomfortable and awkward. No one in the office can talk to me, but I’m pretty sure they talk ABOUT me. She will eventually hand me back my card with a receipt, some change (why?) and a strange forced smile, and I just don’t say anything and leave.

But my ticker box is still lit up like Christmas and flashing numbers that make no sense. So it’s a pretty normal occurrence for me to be sitting here on my computer surfing the internet like this:

And then, without warning, this:

….Fuck.

Your Condescension, as Always, is Much Appreciated.

I’m a little bit moody today, and so it’s making me rant about stupid shit. But here I go anyway:

There are plenty of days lately where I don’t feel like doing much of anything other than surfing the Web under a whole fuck ton of blankets (mostly because it is really cold here in Xi’an, and I really don’t want to go outside). And what I find really just irritates me to no end.  Basically, what I want to address is this ridiculous image that everyone has of himself or herself. The Internet is full of posts that say, “I am so glad we’re talking shit about the same person,” Or “You’re not a nerd; you’re just a whore who found glasses,” And this stupid Condescending Wonka meme. And on and on and on. It is basically one big forum where we all just jump on the idea that it is awesome and cool to be an asshole all the time.

So here’s my question: What do you fucking care? Honestly? You have nothing to dwell on other than how someone else lives his or her life?

Ladies: If you want to wear a Spiderman shirt with Superman shorts, and you don’t understand why those two things don’t necessarily go together, but you just think it looks cool and you want to wear it—GO AHEAD. If some dude gives you shit about “Do you even know that one of those is DC and one is Marvel? Do you even read comics?” Just punch him in the dick. Seriously. Go ahead and hit him right in the balls. Because it is ok to like something just because you like it. You don’t have to be an expert on every detail of something to like one aspect of it. Go ahead, and enjoy what you enjoy—as much or as little of it as you damn well please. If you like to play video games—go fucking play video games. If people give you shit because you’re not a “real gamer,” once again, fucking laugh as you go on and enjoy your life while not obsessing over one single thing. In fact, you go out and go into the real world and do real world shit, and then when you come home and want to play a video game for an hour—Do it. If you want to talk about how much of a good time you had playing your video game—DO IT. No one can tell you that you’re not having a good time doing something you enjoy.

Do you want to go out and have a billion drinks and sleep with every dude you meet? FANTASTIC. If that is what you want to do, then DO IT. If you can look in the mirror the next day and say, “I am so fucking happy with the way I live my life,” then you are on the right track. No one has any right to tell you otherwise.

If you have Justin Beiber, Underoath, Toby Keith, The Beatles, CKY, Lady Gaga, Bright Eyes, Jay Z and Bob Marley on your iTunes, it doesn’t make you a “poser.” It just means that you like a lot of different music. And you’re allowed. Who said that because you sometimes like to head bang to death metal, you can’t dance around to modern pop as well? Where is the rule that you have to fit into one category, and you’re not allowed to like other things? Guess what? That rule doesn’t exist! You can like whatever you want. You can listen to whatever you want. You can listen to Jim Morrison screaming, “Who do you love!?” one moment and immediately change to Kanye advising you against gold-digging women. It isn’t even difficult.

Do you have a different religion, sexual orientation, political preference, hobby, favorite food, career, favorite type of book, etc. than I do? That is wonderful, and I have no problems with that. In fact, I support the shit out of you. You chose to be in a fraternity or a sorority in college, and you love it? Great! I didn’t—I was an athlete, and I sometimes loved it. Also great! You want to stay in your hometown forever and get married and have a billion babies and live that lifestyle? AMAZING. I want to travel the world, be single and never own a home. ALSO AMAZING. Do you want to post on the Internet how much you love the shit you have or the shit you’re doing? PLEASE DO IT. I will also. What you shouldn’t be posting are things like this, “Oh, you aren’t in a sorority? Well you just don’t know anything about anything, and you’re probably a lonely, ugly, single bitch with no friends.” (That was an exaggeration. I’ve actually never seen that post before, but I’m sure it exists somewhere in Internet-land).

Here’s the thing: unless you’re going up to people and punching them in the face for no reason or setting kittens on fire, keep doing what you are doing. If you are doing things that make you happy, and you are not hurting anyone else—keep it up. This whole condescending attitude we’ve all developed is way less attractive than the “ugly whores who think they’re nerds” that the Internet has put on blast.

See, we all talk shit about people. Everyone does it. But the problem exists in this trendy fad to announce how much we talk shit about someone else. It shouldn’t be something we are proud of. I know I slip up, and I know I have said some mean shit about people, but I wouldn’t be proud publically posting something demeaning about someone because of what he or she likes or lives (and I’m not even saying I haven’t done it–I’m just saying it’s not something to glorify). You shouldn’t be proud that you’re a condescending fucking asshole. You shouldn’t be walking around going, “Look how mean I am! Look how much better I am than you!” You should be happy that other people are happy or successful or thriving. If someone wants to wear leggings as pants or Ugg boots with shorts, and she thinks she looks like a boss—thumbs up to her. You rock what you love. If someone works at a bar or as a server or bussing tables to make a living, you have no right to tell that person what he is doing is wrong. I am proud of you for having a job. If two men or two women love each other and want to be together, how is that bothering you in any way? Everyone could always use more love.

The world is a huge place full of billions of people. Literally billions. We all love differently. We all choose to do different things. We all listen to different music; get married to different people; speak different languages; wear different clothes and eat different foods. I love that you do your own thing, and you should love that I do my own thing. Because if we did the same thing, we’d live in one boring fucking place, wouldn’t we?

Well said.

OCD is the New Black

Every once in a while I’ll spend time mindlessly looking at stupid shit online (let’s be honest. I do this all the time. I live in China where there are 4 other people who speak English, and my best friend here is on a completely opposite work schedule). I feel that this keeps me somewhat connected to the western world. Maybe if I spend 9 hours on Pinterest I can pretend there are people here who celebrate holidays and drink Budweiser.

Most of the time being on these sites just makes me question my sanity. I mean I know that I am kind of a lunatic, but I guess I never really noticed the extent of it until I started browsing through the minds of other people and thinking, “Wow. I would never ever fucking think that. Why would anyone actually WANT to decorate a living room?” Also, it has made me painfully aware of how much I swear. Which makes me swear even more. So for all of you easily offended: Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. Because Fuck is my favorite word.

But swearing and decorating are not what I wanted to address for this post. What I want to talk about is the extent of exaggeration that is being used online. Are people taking mild annoyances and blowing them out of proportion, or am I just that far down the spectrum of crazy that I don’t understand it? The most annoying thing I’ve encountered is the self-diagnosis of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I’m in the mood to rant about this, so here goes nothing.

I have had obsession problems my entire life. I have been diagnosed with mild Tourette’s (just mild. Let’s not blow this way out. I unfortunately don’t uncontrollably scream swear words in public. In fact, if I didn’t tell you, you’d probably never ever even know), and this kind of disorder leads to fixations and obsessions that could be classified as OCD, I guess. Now, I don’t give a fuck if my apartment is dirty. I don’t care if the pictures on my walls are in descending order from biggest to smallest. I don’t care if my closet is organized by color or alphabetically or even at all. In fact, I am just proud whenever I get my shit off of the floor and in the closet. I don’t care if my outfit matches, and I don’t care if I have 7 piercings in one ear and 5 in the other (I do). No, my obsessions and compulsions are localized to more specific things, but I think that it still allows me to understand more what OCD really is, and it makes me question whether the internet-folk can tell the difference between being mildly annoyed and actually having a compulsive disorder. Allow me to delve into more embarrassing stories about my life to explain how I define and understand this:

When I was in 5^th grade I started freaking out. I mean this in the most literal way. My parents and teachers thought there was something seriously wrong with my brain. I went into borderline seizures. I would tick uncontrollably—rolling my eyes or making humming noises. I would snap out, and I would not be able to stop. I remember there was serious consideration whether I could complete an entire day of school or not. I spent months in and out of the hospital with electrodes stuck to my head or laying in a CAT scan machine while everyone tried to figure out what the fuck was wrong with me.  I remember my mother crying to my school nurse when she realized that there might actually be a problem. I missed a whole fucking lot of school, but I got to eat at this really awesome Chinese restaurant every time I went downtown to the hospital, so I think I didn’t mind all that much. But that is neither here nor there.

All of the months of hospital visits, medical tests and whatever else they did to me drew the conclusion that I have mild Tourette’s syndrome and severe issues with fixations. The eye rolling was the big sign of Tourette’s, and the humming was a result of my disgusting oral fixation. The rest was a combination of the two. These aren’t things that go away, so for the majority of my life I have been battling with these. I worked really hard to outwardly suppress the symptoms, because when you’re 11 years old being a lunatic, borderline-possessed freak is really bad for your popularity. I almost mastered keeping it to myself (like I said, unless you really paid attention, you wouldn’t even notice). That is until I was 20 and had an awesome life-changing injury.

The story of how I broke my face is fantastic. It is also really long, and I don’t want to do it a disservice by not giving it its own blog post, so I will another time, but to sum it up: I fell and broke my jaw. Pretty badly. I had to have my face surgically put back together. Worst of all, I had to have my jaw wired shut for two months. I could not eat solid food. I had to drink everything through a straw, but I couldn’t put the straw any further than my lips. I couldn’t pry my teeth apart. I couldn’t lick my lips. I couldn’t stick my tongue out. I could only brush the front part of my teeth. If I got something stuck in my mouth (like a hair. Holyfuckingshit), I had no way of getting it out. Now for anyone in the world this would be an absolute nightmare, but for someone with an already horrible oral fixation it was like being dropped into the deepest pit of Hell. My level of lunacy went off the charts, and any work I had of suppressing my fixations went right out the fucking window.

My obsessions went through the roof. After getting my jaw unwired I began to feel the absolute need to put anything and everything in my mouth. I was like a toddler who discovered how much easier teething is when he has something to chew on. Straws, forks, my fingers, pens, pencils, food, paper, my hair, Chap stick and my goddamn savior—chewing gum. Now, since the injury, this sensation has never gone away. My oral fixation is still at this level. I am obsessed with my mouth. I brush my teeth probably 8 or 9 times a day. I always ALWAYS have a pack of gum on hand. I can go through a tube of Chap Stick in a week. I chew my fingers and fingernails (they are always bleeding). In between times when I have something in my mouth, I snap my teeth together and make loud clicking noises. If there is any doubt, ask anyone who has watched me chew an entire pack of gum in an hour. It is a legitimate thing.

Now because I have these conditions, I have been able draw a definition of OCD or any other obsessive disorder, and this is where I have a real problem with the things being put all over the internet: An obsessive compulsion to do something or have something a certain way is not simply just being annoyed or irritated. If the compulsion is not completed or put the way it is felt to be, it causes an irrational and uncontrollable anxiety. This isn’t just an irritation. It causes fear, sweating, pressure and physical pain. I have been in such desperate need to address a fixation that I have begun to cry and even scream. It feels like something is constantly pulling at you, but in the deepest parts of your body where you can’t reach them. Something is unzipping your nerves or clawing at the insides of your muscles. It is absolutely, 100% a real and physical feeling. It is impossible to ignore. There is no way to put it in the back of your mind. It is not easy to deal with, and if given the choice, I would rather just feed my crazy than have to deal with the pain of trying to cure it.

See how sexy this isn’t?

If the hundreds of thousands of people who post daily about their OCD or whatever actually had these issues they would simply not be able to post about it.* I have seen the pictures that depict things out of order or not lined up exactly that supposedly are the cause of the Internet’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. I understand that things are annoying, but to claim OCD is out of control. If a group of mismatched tiles or cookies placed the wrong way really causes you to have an OCD reaction, you could not look at those pictures you’re posting, let alone glorify them to the rest of the world. If you can take a look at something like this and walk away and forget about it, YOU DO NOT HAVE AN OBSESSION OR A COMPULSION.

Also, why do people seem to want to have OCD or these crazy disorders? I have lived with this for a long time, and I rarely bring them up to anyone (except now, because I’ve accepted that this blog exists to exploit my embarrassing antics to the world). They are not fun. They are not pretty. They are embarrassing and horrible. They are painful and scary. They are almost impossible to control, and so many people who truly have an issue choose to live with it rather than fix it. It is not cute to lose your shit over something that logically shouldn’t fucking matter. Also, Gentlemen, an oral fixation should not be a turn on. It is a disgusting need to constantly put shit into your mouth or make noises.

Smoking hot girls sharing ice-cream? Sexy. True oral fixation? No.

I am not trying to tell anyone who they are or what disorders they have. If you want to be a crazy-pants and exaggerate the Hell out of your mild annoyance, then do it. If you actually do have OCD, then I am so sorry. I sympathize with you, and I send my condolences with a pack of chewing gum and some Band-Aids. But it is really frustrating to see it as something cute and funny to post about. The reality of OCD can be seen on the TV shows where people have to touch a doorknob every time they see one or they break down, or they have to wait until something happens in multiples of three before they can move (like a light changing or people passing). What they have is real. What I have is mild. What the Internet has is an inability to handle being irritated and a need for attention.

DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to glorify my own problems. I am not trying to vie for the title of most fucked up person on the Internet, or the most correct or the most rational (because that’s obviously not true). I usually like exaggeration. It can be really amusing. But for this post, I am simply ranting and writing. This is one of the most embarrassing things in my life, and it is absolutely difficult for me to put it into the open, but while I’m afraid of Wrigley going out of business, I am not afraid of looking like a crazy idiot. I don’t understand why this particular problem is such a fad.

 

*I can write about this because posting it doesn’t cause my anxiety to go crazy. If this blog caused me to be unable to stick something in my teeth then I wouldn’t be able to put it online. But it doesn’t, so here it is.

My Sleeping Position Determined I’m a Psycho.

I’m about to head to sleep, but like any other human on the planet that means I’m going to sit on my computer until my mind shuts off (it won’t). So just now I stumbled upon a study that claims that your sleeping position can determine your personality. Here’s what they have to say:

All I want to know is: what can you tell me about my personality if I sleep like Emily Rose while she’s possessed by the devil? Am I Nero?

(Emily Rose)

(I took this picture a few days ago when I realized that while trying to take a nap I curl up really weird)

I AM THE ONE WHO DWELLS WITHIN!